Charities Aid Foundation
Empowering accessibility for all with Microsoft Copilot
The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) is a unique organisation which exists to improve the effectiveness of both charities and their donors. For over a century, CAF has partnered with corporate and individual donors to enable them to give more effectively and impactfully, while also helping charities and social enterprises to strengthen their resilience through strategic advice and specialist services.
Last year the charity distributed over £1.1 billion to approximately a quarter of a million charities in 100 countries. Leading this impactful organisation of over 700 staff is Neil Heslop OBE, a visionary CEO who, despite being blind since his 20s, effectively manages his responsibilities with the aid of advanced technology. This case study explores how Microsoft Copilot has transformed the working practices of Neil Heslop, OBE, Chief Executive at Charities Aid Foundation, and his Executive Support Manager, Philippa (Pippa) Grantham, enhancing accessibility, efficiency, and collaboration across the organisation.
Neil faces unique challenges due to his visual impairment. Being able to access information at the speed he requires is crucial for him to perform his role effectively. Traditional methods of information processing were time-consuming and often inefficient, especially when dealing with extensive reports and documents.
Pippa, as his Executive Support Manager, also needed a solution that could streamline her workflow and improve her ability to support Neil, in addition to improving collaboration with the wider organisation.
Neil already uses specialist equipment like his braille keyboard and JAWS screen reader which interface directly with Microsoft 365, specifically Outlook, Word and PowerPoint. In order to understand Neil’s working practices and establish any challenges or bottlenecks that could be addressed by AI, it was important for Phoenix to directly observe how he used the tools at his disposal. Phoenix therefore started by spending a few days shadowing Neil and Pippa to understand how they interact during the course of the working day.
After a few sessions with Neil and Pippa, Phoenix was able to articulate their main challenges and pain points and develop a training plan that would help them to leverage Copilot for Microsoft 365 to overcome these challenges. Copilot’s seamless integration with Neil’s existing tools provided for a smooth experience with very little changes required to his workflow, and the tailored training plan developed by Phoenix ensured that Neil and Pippa could leverage Copilot to its fullest potential and realise improvements immediately.
The implementation of Copilot for Microsoft 365 at the Charities Aid Foundation has been a game-changer for Neil Heslop, his immediate team, and the charity’s 700 staff. Due to the nature of what CAF does, any improvements in the charity’s productivity directly supports the organisation’s ability to get more money to charities around the world, which in turn ensures more people receive the help and support they need.
By enhancing accessibility, improving efficiency, and fostering better collaboration, Copilot has empowered Neil and Pippa to work more effectively together in support of the organisation’s mission of aiding charities worldwide. The benefits of integrating Copilot into their workflows are numerous and significant. While some benefits were realised almost immediately, CAF expects additional efficiency benefits to come over time as the rest of the organisation gets to grips with Copilot and finds new ways to leverage the tool in new and exciting ways.
Further benefits are:
Enhanced accessibility and efficiency:
Copilot has significantly improved Neil’s ability to access and process information quickly. As Neil mentioned,
“Copilot is just an amazing compliment to the way I work, because it enables me to do all sorts of things that haven’t been possible until now.”
Providing independent and objective summaries of documents:
Copilot can provide a dispassionate summary of documents, allowing Neil to receive unbiased summaries and insights of any document in a matter of seconds. As Pippa explains,
“Whenever we received a lengthy report for example, I would spend at least a couple of hours reading through it to find the key points in order to formulate a response. Now I can use Copilot to summarise the report for me. In addition to the considerable amount of time saved, I know that the summary it provides me is completely independent and objective, allowing us to focus on the facts and remove any bias that might be found in the author’s own summary.”
Improved collaboration:
The integration of Copilot has enhanced the way Neil and Pippa work together, making their workflow more efficient and effective. Pippa noted,
“I have the reassurance that staff are able to directly share information with Neil in a more accessible way, which is really valuable.”
Increased Productivity:
By automating routine tasks and providing quick access to information, Copilot has allowed Neil and Pippa to focus on more strategic activities. This has enabled CAF to support more charities more effectively.
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